A crash course in VR

(modern consumer grade VR as of Dec 2014)

WHO AM I?

 

Cratesmith!

(aka Kieran Lord)

WHAT DO I DO?

I make games!

 

Things I've contributed to...

  • PS2/XB: Destroy All Humans 2
  • 360/PS3: The Dark Knight (Unreleased)
  • Wii: Next big thing (Unreleased)
  • Web: Alternator
  • PC/PS3: Vessel
  • iOS/Droid: Sim Cell
  • iOS/Droid: Codebreakers
  • PC/Mac: Kinect & VR support for Tail Drift

WHAT ELSE DO I DO?

 

Unity middleware such as Autopilot 

(Testflight build/SDK integration for unity) 

 

VR/Tech R&D 

 

Unity3D, VR and emerging technology consulting

 

and custom plugins. 

 

What I'm here to say

  • Where is consumer VR at?
  • What is it good at right now?
  • What is  it NOT good at right now?
  • How do you develop for it at the moment!?

What consumer VR is coming.

Disposable VR

  • Google Cardboard
    already on market. (many others coming)
     
  • Similar viewing experience to a toy viewfinder
     
  • Uses a mobile phone, usually supporting a wide variety of handsets
     
  • Ideal for advertising, promotions and education.

Mobile VR

  • Samsung Gear VR coming to market in the coming month or so (Monetizable from around april)
     
  • Very high quality VR experience.
     
  • Less focused on games. No position tracking.
     
  • Ideal for entertainment, serious games, business

Desktop VR

  • Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheous; release dates unknown
     
  • Ideal for PC games, simulators & demo installations.
     
  • Initially a niche consumer market (peripherals)
     
  • Best VR experiences available.

Developing for VR...

And designing projects for it

It's a completely new space

  • Many things you think will work, probably wont
  • Many things you think won't work probably will
  • The shape and size of the consumer market is completely unknown

So how on earth do you work in this space?!

Set Clear High Level Goals

  • The best way to make your project work in VR won't be apparent from the outset, but you still need a plan.
     
  • What are the core elements of the project?
     
  • What are the key experiences or targets it should deliver on? 

Constant prototyping.

  • You won't know if something is good until you build at least two of it
     
  • Always build several prototypes of every feature you want to add.
     
  • Test them on users (never yourself) and pick the one that they respond best to.

Go super agile. 

  • The worst enemy you can have is a fixed and detailed long term plan. 
     
  • Things will change often and plan time for setbacks.
     
  • Use methods like agile, scrum, kanban etc to organize your project as you go

What we know works well in VR

Seated & Cockpit experiences/Games

  • EVE-Valkarie, Elite, Warthunder, Oculus Cinema
     
  • Very convincing experience, encourages the user to look around. Main experience in front and extra info at sides.
     
  • User is given a virtual, static seat to match the real one they're sitting in

Disembodied camera experiences/Games

  • Lucky's tale, Land's end, map viewers
     
  • The user's vision is a floating camera that is static or able to move slowly through the world
     
  • These are mostly seated experiences but 

Body tracking experiences/Games

  • Hoverboards INC, XTODIE, Tail Drift VR
     
  • Difficult to develop as controls must be uniquely built to game experience.
     
  • Often requires extra hardware.
     
  • (my personal favourite)

What we know doesn't work so well in VR

First person shooter games

  • Team fortress 2, Half life 2
     
  • Someone will be able to make a decent FPS game for VR, but patching existing ones doesn't work well most of the time.
     
  • Quake 2 oddly is an exception, it plays really well, not sure why though!

3rd person games with camera follow

  • Hard to find examples, people don't develop these past a first test it seems.
     
  • Behind player cameras do not work in VR, they have lots of movement and rotate "without permission".
     
  • It's also really disconcerting.

Traditional MMO/Open world RPg games

  • Everyone keeps asking for these. I really wish they would stop.
     
  • Text and complex interfaces aren't easy to use & read in VR.
     
  • We are going to get VR based MMOs but they won't be like the MMORPGs we have now.

Questions?

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